Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as “Pearl.”
By Pearl
Someone on this blog once mentioned a book by Alice Miller and Andrew Jenkins, and it caught my attention. So now I’m reading The Truth Will Set You Free—Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self.
Even though I’m only about halfway through the book, I wanted to share parts of it because it is so important to what a lot of us are working on—forgiving ourselves and trying to understand why this (fraud) happened to us. I know this won’t apply or appeal to everyone, but it might help some of you as it has me. Miller’s ideas help me understand why I was susceptible and forgive myself for my blindness—my inability to spot a “bad guy.”
Miller focuses on childhood—on how corporal punishment (spanking/whipping) and humiliation—cause a type of blindness in adulthood that can lead to being manipulated and UNABLE TO SEE THROUGH LIES. She emphasizes that the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation and emotional blackmail leaves long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another as adults.
Here is the cycle as she sees it:
- Traditional methods of upbringing, which have included corporal punishment, lead a child to DENY suffering and humiliation. (Can anyone related to having a high pain threshold? Where did I get that bruise or cut—I don’t remember getting it? Ever feel humiliated at being spanked, paddled or whipped as a child? Ever experience a parent being insensitive to suffering?)
- This denial, although essential if the child is to SURVIVE, will later cause emotional blindness.
- Emotional blindness produces “barriers in the mind” erected to guard against dangers. This means that early denied traumas become encoded in the brain, and even though they no longer pose a threat, they continue to have a subtle, destructive impact. (The memory of how to respond to such crappy behavior from our parents and authority figures is still there.)
- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.
- Our bodies retain a complete memory of the humiliations we suffered, driving us to inflict unconsciously on the next generation what we endured in childhood, unless we become aware of the cause of our behavior, which is embedded in the history of our own childhoods.
As children, some of us learned to suppress and deny natural feelings. Some of us lived in a world where our feelings were ignored and denied.
All the beaten child remembers is FEAR and the face of the ANGRY parent, not why the beating was taking place. The child may even assume he had been naughty and deserved the punishment. Miller writes that in the absence of a witness who can empathize with us in childhood and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the pain but to close our minds to it.
In a bid to blot the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, we can fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, and FAIL TO SEE THROUGH ALL KINDS OF LIES.
Having this information helps me understand why I was “ripe for the picking.” It also goes a long way toward helping me forgive myself and move on in the healing process.
Emotional blindness was HUGE for me. I see it in a friend also. We are very close. She is married to an EXTREMELY controlling man, everyone who knows him, male or female, knows this about him and was afraid for her when she married him. She kept having problems with him and asked me point blank what I thought of him. I said, “I know you won’t agree, but I think he is extremely controlling.” She looked puzzled and pondered that, and said, “You are right, I don’t agree.” Then she went right on to describe some extremely controlling behavior, EXTREMELY controlling, even physically controlling her, and she had no idea she was validating my point. CANNOT see it. And it took me months and months and months, with a therapist helping me, to recognize what was done to me by the bad guy the FIRST TIME I saw him, that I should have RAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One book “Women Who Love Too Much” says,(and I think that unfortunately it seems to be true, and I think the Betrayal Bond author would agree), that a lover who hooks into your childhood drama (for me, being love bombed and dumped repeatedly by a N mom) will always be more compelling than a healthy love. That is part of the siren that tries to pull me back….that I’m USED to struggling to win back “the great man’s” love (even though a N or a P is not a great man, they create that feeling), I want, I NEED so much to win that battle at last. Whereas my healthy relationships just don’t COMPEL me. How do we get unhooked from that compulsion? Unaddicted? I’m working on the steps in Women Who Love Too Much, and I ALMOST get there…..there are times I let go of the need, that I start to feel contentment, calm….and then….there I go again! Does this book have concrete steps for getting past those barriers? (And I don’t have kids, but god forgive me, I’ve treated my husband at times, too many times, just as I was treated as a child.)
While I see the author’s point about corporal punishment, I don’t think it is so much the PHYSICAL punishment itself that is the problem with the “emotional blindness” but the HUMILIATION THAT GOES ALONG WITH IT SOMETIMES. My grandmother spanked me when I was quite little, and I vividly recall the first time I consciously LIED to her. I got a “switching” on my little legs.
She was going to the garden which was out of sight (but not hearing) of the yard and wanted me to come along, I was happily playing in the dirt in the yard and didn’t want to go. She said “If I leave you here you will run away (across a busy highway) to see the other children” The thought had NOT crossed my mind until then to run away if she was out of sight, but she gave me a GREAT IDEA I thought, and I looked at her and CONSCIOUSLY LIED “Oh, no, I will stay right here.” She believed me, and of course, as soon as she was out of sight, I high tailed it to the neighbors house to see their kids. I remember the switching I got on the way home. There was no humiliation with it (and it was not brutal or painful or injurious) I DID get what I deserved. She sanctioned my behavior.
My mother, who spanked me less often than my grandmother did, always made sure to HUMILIATE ME with it. Looking back now, I can see the DIFFERENCE in the two approaches. If my grandmother spanked me IT WAS OVER and done with, never brought up again. If my mother spanked me it was NEVER OVER, it was always a humiliation and a DIFFERENT ATTITUDE.
My mother made a point of reciting every time she had “had to” spank me previously each time she spanked me. In one of my recent conversations with her (a few months ago) she even mentioned a “beating” (literally) that she had given me when I was 15 as JUSTIFIED because I had lied to her—this was to “justify” her own lying to me THAT DAY when we were talking.
A “lie” 45+ years ago was enough to justify her (A) beating me then and (B) lying to me today. Actually, I remember the beating vividly, and my step father pulling her off me because I sat passively, while “counting the licks” (which I was defying her by doing) and it was NOT about a lie, it was because I had “sassed” her. I knew, even then, if I had cried she would have stopped, but I was defiant and sat there “counting the licks” while each one became harder (and the blood started to run) because I was defying her then by not “submitting.” I had determined she could beat me to death but I would neither submit and “give up” or fight back at her. It was my own little passive aggression….and of course it ENRAGED her.
HOW sick we both were!!! What brings a child to have such defiance? I think it was the humiliation and my own teen aged rebellion against it. My grandmother had long since before stopped “spanking” me (I can’t remember one after about age 4 or 5) my grandfather never spanked me, and I can’t remember a spanking from my step father at all (though I think he actually did spank me once or twice in my life) but I vividly recall the humiliation of my mother’s spankings, which lasted until I was 12 or so, and even a “talking to” was always a humiliation. I don’t recall being humiliated by any “talking to” I got from my step father. I actually don’t recall being humiliated by any member of my family EXCEPT my mother when I was growing up. I do recall being told my behavior was unacceptable and to “stop it.” (which I usually did) I was not rebellious or resentful of any adult member of my family EXCEPT my mother.
While corporal punishment can be a problem, in my opinion, I think the WAY it is administered (at least in my case) is the BIGGER problem than being spatted on the butt. Even VERBAL reprimand can be HUMMILIATING and I think the humiliation is the BIGGER culprit.
A timely post, in my case. Just yesterday was seeing my therapist and brought up this very topic.
I was brought up by two alcoholic (but highly successful) Ns. Verbal and physical abuse were the norm. I vividly remember my mother, on numerous occasions, while she was beating the living daylights out of me saying “Look what you made me do! I hurt my hand/wrist/whatever because of you!”
My father was a real prize, too. I can remember my siblings and I begging for my father to deliver the beating. He would deliver enough lashes to get us howling, and then whack the bedpost while my mother urged him on from the other side of the locked door. How sick is that?
The looks on both their faces while they delivered those beatings — eyes vacant, biting on their tongues — are indelibly etched on my brain.
By the age of 11 I dreaded going home after school and was going into a full-blown shutdown. One of the last times I tried to defend myself I told my mother to stop controlling me. Her response? “Everybody has someone controlling them.”
At 18 I just couldn’t go on. I threw in the towel and almost died of a massive overdose of seconal.
The ironic part is that my parents who were so big on how they were perceived by the public never figured out that what went on behind closed doors flew out open windows.
A few years ago, a friend’s mother, who is a neighbor of my parents, told me “I couldn’t stand listening to what your parents were doing to you kids. I’m so ashamed for not calling the authorities.” I told her “It wouldn’t have made a difference whom you called. It was the 60s and 70s. Nobody WOULD do anything. Nobody COULD do anything. It was considered a “FAMILY MATTER.” But it’s nice to hear from you that what went on there wasn’t normal.”
I told my therapist yesterday that I think my emotional IQ shut down somewhere around 11 and I feel emotionally retarded. What self-respecting adult would tolerate the crap I tolerated that began with my parents and continued on through a long string of acquaintances (I won’t call them friends) and lovers that culminated with S?
I agree with you, Donna. By the time S came along, I was ripe for the picking. How ironic that the S was my wakeup call that something has to change in my life.
I do remember spankings from my childhood, but even though I was humiliated by those infrequent punishments, what I remember more is my father’s endless lectures. He would hound and hound and ask leading questions to make me answer in agreement with him. His rules were always stiff, with no room for movement. I felt so stifled, I spent all my time in my basement bedroom. He was an abnormal father, to say the least, and I can barely stand him for a weekend to this day. I learned to follow his cryptic rules completely in order to make my life easier and not disappoint him. My brothers fought harder, and it eventually came to blows, and they both moved in with my partying, alcoholic, drug-abusing mom.
So I learned early the art of people-pleasing, which makes me ripe for a sociopath to pick, but I wouldn’t necessarily place all the blame on spankings. Lets face it, different children respond in different ways. Some can respond to time-outs, discussions, taking away things. Others OCCASIONALLY need a spanking, delivered in the right state of mind, and leaving behind NO marks. I guess it depends on the person. But most sociopaths, narcissists, psychos, etc, have little impulse control, and have hair triggers, so they will almost always be terrible parents.
Pearl:
Called you Donna. Sorry. Great post.
Kerisee04:
Can so relate to your post. My parents would browbeat me into submission. I find it odd that I went into law, a conflict laden profession, when in my personal life I have been conditioned to avoid conflict at all costs.
The cryptic rules — My parents made up the rules as they went along. The rules varied day-by-day, minute-to-minute. I never understood the rules of the game, because my parents kept moving the goal posts.
The sense of uncertainty my parents instilled in me is alive and well, to this day. Combine that with hair triggers and I lived through my own personal Nightmare on Elm Street.
I think those moving goal posts are partially responsible for my complete and total lack of boundaries. I told my therapist last night that I cannot believe I’m 51 and have no boundaries. I’m finally starting to establish boundaries, but I am absolutely exhausted from living a life without them.
I believe the physical beatings are also locked into our bodies and dull our aliveness and ability to “live inside our bodies”. I experienced this firsthand doing intensive meditation practice. I released long held beatings I received as a child, and the emotions that were bound up with them. Afterward, I could feel my feet planted more squarely on the ground and was able to taste food much better. Physical, mental, and emotional trauma all cause energetic blockages in our bodies. For myself, the best way to release them is through meditation and breathwork. I have also done a bit of bioenergetic work, hitting on pillows. I believe that as long as this energy is still bound up in our bodies, we will continue, as Pearl says, to live in denial.
I think we need to keep in mind ANY kind of “punishment” that is done to a child is wrong. I don’t even like to say “I punished my child” I would rather say I CORRECTED my child. Maybe that’s splitting hairs, but maybe not too.
What is a “spanking”? Is it a rage-filled PHYSICAL BEATING by an angry, out of control parent? That is PUNISHMENT, abuse, and intended to inflict PAIN and control on the child.
I can see a BIG difference in the “switchings” my grandmother gave me and the “spankings” and the one “beating” my mother inflicted on me. I don’t remember feeing “resentment” or humiliation at my grandmother, but I can’t recall a single spanking (or the one beating) I received at my mother’s hands that didn’t engender a combination of anger, humiliation and resentment in me.
Probably, if I were raising a child today, spankings, if any, would be fewer and farther between than when I DID raise my sons. Partly because I have learned to be more patient with children than I was when I was younger, and learned other ways to cope with a child’s behavior, but I would not say I would NEVER spank a child. I know one thing though, I would never BEAT a child, and I would do my dead level best to never humiliate a child.
Corporal punishment for me teaches only one thing shame…
I know that when my children were younger I would spank them but also felt inside it was wrong. And in the end I know now it did nothing more but teach them shame. I learned later that by sitting the child down and talking (when they got to that age) about the problem and then ask them what do you think I should do to punish you it gave them options and me too. This allow me to grief less (I always felt like shit after spanking them which was my shame) and felt we could work it out thru a mutual agreement. Like no TV for a week or being grounded. In my opinion Corporal punishment doesn’t work and again only teaches the child shame.
As for me my alcoholic father (he) never beat or spanked me (that I can remember) when sober but would attack me if he was drunk. Thank God I was too fast and would hide from him until he fell asleep. I do remember once when he got me in a headlock and thought “okay this time I gonna die” but somehow I got away. Anyway I didn’t spend a lot of time with my father but lived at Lydia which was a children home. As for the Children home I lived at they did believe in corporal punishment and would use a flat wooden board with a handle (it was painted red) to redden your butt. I remember getting old sparkly a couple of times. I also remember the other kids telling me to wear more underwear because then it would hurt less. But it taught me only to be more careful when breaking the rules then teach me anything of any important other then shame. Which I guess was the point. Because all the other children knew you got a taste of old sparkly. But I did thank God when that practices was stopped. Man it did hurt like hell!!
Very interesting thread, and I agree, that shame and humiliation are the more lasting scars of physical punishment. Also deeply imbedded I think is the sense of powerlessnes, defencelessness and so on.
So I would venture that there is one more defining feature to the arguement. Being made to feel shame, UNJUSTLY or UNFAIRLY.
Being shamed for breaking an arbitrary or unjust rule for instance, or blammed when innocent and so on. Those, I think are the incidents that we carry around for years, burying the anger at the injustice together with the shame.
Being spanked for a real offense does not carry the same baggage I think.
Speaking of childhood trauma’s today I had to take my beloved 2 yr. old dog to be possibly euthanized, as he is paralyzed (perhaps temporarily) My practical farmer neighbour suggested I immediately call the vet and put him down.
Well the floodgates of sorrow and greif that opened up were bigger than any tears throughout my split with the S.
Of course I love my animal, but the wall of greif that came today was from somewhere even deeper . I realized that the possibility of losing a pet brings back all the pain of when my mother gave away my beloved pet when I was little. As an only child of indifferent parents he was my most faithful freind.
The dog had been given away( over many objections, tears and begging on my part ) to new owners about 20 miles away. Three weeks later I got a call from a freind that my dog was in her yard. Within minutes he was home and we had an exstatic reunion. He had found his way home!.
It was early and my mother insisted I MUST go to school. I told her I knew we couldn’t keep him but to please PROMISE to keep him until I got back for lunch so I could have a few more minutes with him… I guess you can figure out the rest….
That betrayal and the feelings it engendered was never healed during my mothers lifetime.
Every loss brings up subconcious memories of other buried losses or pain from the past. Does it make sense that the more “pain” we have had as children, the more likely we are to turn ourselves into pretzels to avoid another loss and the consequent pain?
We make good targets because we have known pain, and naturally, want to avoid more. Once ensnared by a talented Socio, we are like a deer in the headlights, frozen in fear, and blinded when the devalue phase sets iin.
Reading all these amazing posts, I am confidant that once healed, and armed with our new knowledge we will not fall prey to the same illusions fom a predator again.
Go tribe!
But wait a minute. Aren’t we saying it is wrong to teach children shame, and yet saying socio’s are evil because they do not possess it? There are times when both children or adults should feel shame if they have behaved in a shameful way.
Isn’t it ironic tho’ that the worst of all feelings ,( according to my therapist the most difficult to endure of all emotions) is the one that socio’s lack. SHAME.